Day: November 13, 2014

[Jens] aka [Tumblebeer] has compiled an impressive overview of the Tumblemill, his homemade CNC mill. It warms our hearts to learn that [Tumblebeer] was inspired to pursue electronics by projects featured here on Hackaday, even if it means he dropped out of med school to pursue electrical engineering. We’re glad he’s following his passion, though, and reading through his blog reveals just how far he’s come: from fiery disaster in his first projects to a gradual obsession with making a CNC device, [Tumblebeer] has made plenty of mistakes along the way, but that’s how it should be.

His first iteration was a CNC router that used rubber wheels as linear bearings. It worked…barely. His latest build grew out of meticulous Solidworks modelling, with a moving gantry design constructed largely from aluminum, and upgraded linear motion: this time a bit overkill, using HIWIN HGH20CA blocks. Rather than sourcing a traditional spindle mount, [Tumblebeer] opted for the housing from a LM50UU bearing, which provided both the perfect fit and a sturdier housing for his 2.2kw spindle.

Visit his project blog for the details behind the mill’s construction, including a lengthy installment of upgrades, and hang around for a demo video below, along with the obligatory (and always appreciated) inclusion of the Jolly Wrencher via defacing an Arduino.

With the Intertubes atwitter about the finalist – and winner – of the Hackaday Prize, it’s only fitting the rest of you get to hear what the judges thought about the finalists.

We had some amazing judges combing over these projects, ranging from people who have told Congress they could shut down the Internet at will to a Dutch guy that just figured out how to order a plain hamburger in the Munich train station. Really, really smart people. Here’s what they had to say about each project:

Kickstarter isn’t the solution to every manufacturing hurdle, you know? Crowdsourcing—everybody’s favorite cliché to invoke after sharing their less-than-half-baked merchandise idea—has expanded to include yet another variation, and is currently rocking [Max Thrun’s] BeagleBone GamingCape thanks to [Jason Kridner]. If the cape looks familiar, it’s because we featured it earlier this summer, when [Max] created it as part of TI’s Intern Design Challenge.

Here’s how it works. Rather than asking strangers to place pre-orders (let’s admit it, that’s ultimately how Kickstarter functions), CircuitHub campaigns work as a group-buy: upload your KiCad, Eagle or Altium design and a BOM, and you’re on your way to bulk-order savings. As [Kridner] explains in his blog post, you’ll have some finagling to do for your campaign to be successful, such as choosing between prices at different volumes, projecting how many people need to buy in as a group, etc. When he sourced the parts on his own, [Kridner] spent nearly $1000 for a single GamingCape. The CircuitHub campaign, if successful, would land everyone a board for under $100 each—and it’s assembled.

A lot of people have used ESP8266 to add inexpensive WiFi connectivity to their projects, but [Oscar] decided to take it one step further and program an Arduino over WiFi with the ESP8266. [Oscar] wrote a server script in Python that communicates with firmware running on the Arduino. The Arduino connects to the server on startup and listens for a “reboot” command.

When the command is received, the processor resets and enters the bootloader. The python script begins streaming a hex file over WiFi to the ESP8226, which relays it to the Arduino’s bootloader. Once the hex file is streamed, the microcontroller seamlessly starts executing the firmware. This method can be used with any AVR running a stk500-compatible bootloader.

[Oscar]’s writeup is in Spanish, but fortunately the comments in his Python and Arduino code are in English. Check out the video (in English) after the break where [Oscar] demonstrates his bootloading setup.

The Grand Prize winner of the 2014 Hackaday Prize is SatNOGs. The project is a thrilling example of the benefits of a connected world. It opens up the use of satellite data to a much wider range of humanity by providing plans to build satellite tracking stations, and a protocol and framework to share the satellite data with those that cannot afford, or lack the skills to build their own tracking station. The hardware itself is based on readily available materials, commodity electronics, and just a bit of 3D printing.

Congratulations to all 5 top winners

SatNOGS – Grand Prize

You already know this but such an accomplishment is well worth mentioning again!

ChipWhisperer – Second Prize

The ChipWhisperer is a hardware security testing platform that allows developers to explore side-band and glitch vulnerabilities in their hardware projects. The existing technologies for this type of testing are prohibitively expensive for most products. The availability of this tool plays a dual role of helping to inform developers of these potential attack vectors, and allowing them to do some level of testing for them.

PortableSDR – Third Prize

The form and function of the PortableSDR move forward both Software Defined Radio and Ham. The SDR aspect fully removes the need to use a computer. The wireless functions provided can be called a modernization of portable amateur radio hardware.

Open Source Science Tricorder – Fourth Prize

Inspired by the future-tech item found in the Star Trek franchise, the Open Source Science Tricorder uses currently available technology to produce a handheld collection of sensors. The design provides modularity so that the available sensors can be customized based on need. Equally importantly, the user interface gives meaning to the data being measured, and allows it to be uploaded, graphed, and otherwise manipulated on the Internet.

ramanPi – Fifth Prize

Raman Spectroscopy is used to help determine what molucules are found in test samples. One example would be determining possible contaminants in drinking water. These tools are expensive and the ramanPi project will mean more labs (at University or otherwise) as well as citizen scientists will be able to build their own spectrometer. One particularly interesting aspect of the project is the parametric 3D printer file used for mounting the machine’s optics. The use of this technique means that the design can easily be adapted for different types of lenses.

2015 Hackaday Prize

With the great success of these five projects, and the potential that Open Design has to move the world forward, we hope to host another round of The Hackaday Prize in 2015. When you’re done congratulating the winners in the comments below, let us know what you think the subject of the next challenge should be.

Thank you to our sponsor

Hackaday would like to thank the generosity of our sponsor, Supplyframe Inc., who supported the cost of all prizes. Supplyframe is Hackaday’s parent company and their values are closely aligned with our own.

The Kankun smart plug is an inexpensive device that lets you switch an outlet on and off over wifi. The smart plug only works with an Android or IOS app that ships with the device, which limits its usefulness to turning things on and off from your phone.

In an attempt to make this device more useful, [LinuxGeek] probed the device with nmap and discovered that it runs OpenWRT. After trying various common default passwords he discovered the login was root/admin. While [LinuxGeek] hasn’t sniffed the protocol yet, others have hacked it a bit further. The plug apparently uses UDP packets to communicate with the Android app, but the packets are unfortunately encrypted.

Rather than hack at the protocol, they wrote code that toggles the GPIO pin from a CGI script and developed a small Windows application that hits the CGI script for simple control from a computer. There’s also a Google+ group where more information and a couple other hacks for these plugs are posted. For $20 (from AliExpress) and with a bit of hacking, this smart plug could be a great way to add wireless control to a home automation system.

The Hackaday Prize is here! We know you can’t all be here with us in Munich so we’ve set up a live stream link for everyone to follow along at home. If you tune in now, you can catch some of the talks at our open hardware event!